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167 C H a p t e r 1 1 Declaration of Independence in spring 1926, tHe papers were fUll of tHe news tHat gloria Swanson was going independent. Reports of how much money Paramount had offered her to stay varied widely, but all the numbers were jaw-dropping. While she finished her last Paramount picture, Swanson tried to learn her new business. In addition to selecting her upcoming projects, as a one-fifth partner in United Artists she was suddenly immersed in a flood of details and decisions relating to the company’s ongoing affairs. Should UA partner with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to gain better access to theaters? Should it buy or build theaters of its own? How should UA manage foreign rights? Some of these debates had been going on for years. The four founding partners were independents who often disagreed vigorously yet had a policy that all decisions must be unanimous. Pickford, Chaplin, Fairbanks, and Griffith had been in the movie business a long time and had learned the hard way to protect their individual interests. They often had different ideas about how UA could best do this. Chaplin, for instance, wanted as little to do with financing others’ films as possible; he did not need financing from UA and did not want to incur the risk of providing it to others. Pickford, on the other hand, wanted to expand in order to stabilize the company for the long term. As Swanson sorted through the proposals piling up in Henri’s office, she understood that being her own producer would require much more business expertise than she had imagined—or possessed. She was still working full-time for Paramount. Every day on the set she struggled to observe as much as she could of the production process, and every night she struggled to learn what she needed to know as a United Artist. Eventually, Swanson was just struggling, her poor manners on Fine Manners a function of exhaustion finally catching up with her. In the past d e C l a r at i o n o f i n d e p e n d e n C e 168 year Gloria had almost died. She had returned to Hollywood with a new husband and made three pictures. She had finalized the adoption of her son, bought a home in New York, and turned down a million-dollar contract to throw in her lot with a bunch of independents who—it turned out—barely spoke to one another. As the spring days lengthened, the weight of her responsibility—to the children, to Henri, to her large staff, to herself—felt crushing. Swanson was observed “weep[ing] copiously” at a Broadway play, and in tears at a screening of La฀Bohème, while Henri sat alongside her, “nervous and visibly embarrassed.”1 The flu sent her into quarantine, but she continued to feel ill, paralyzed by the enormity of her undertaking. Swanson’s last Paramount film wrapped amid rumors that the star was having a nervous breakdown. She spent several weeks confined to her penthouse apartment, unable to do anything except rest. Swanson’s energy and self-confidence had for once failed her, and it was “a very frightening experience.”2 She regained her balance and perspective slowly. Thankfully, there was little fanfare, Photoplay noting blandly in midsummer that the actress had “recovered from her nervous breakdown” and was back at work.3 Swanson expected partnership in UA to involve “board meetings over coffee on the terrace at Pickfair and help in a jiffy if I should ever need it.” Instead, it meant “long, grueling business sessions in New York with Joe Schenck and a shrewd gang of lawyers, accountants, and bankers.”4 To make the profit-sharing part of UA a reality, the company needed reliable income. That meant acquiring more talented contributors (to bump up the number of films in distribution) and running the company more efficiently. The founding partners had enlisted Joe Schenck to do both. Schenck, a Russian immigrant, was a brilliant businessman. With his brother, Nick, he had parlayed an East Coast amusement park into a partnership with Marcus Loew, who owned an important chain of movie theaters. Schenck had guided his much younger wife, Norma Talmadge, to Hollywood stardom; he also managed her sisters’ film careers. As an independent, he had produced successful pictures by Buster Keaton and Fatty Arbuckle. He knew everyone and was well-liked, though you had better...

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